I recently came upon several videos (mostly old) where Mengsk players uses Pride of Augustgrad as his only royal guards. They usually end the game with at least two lvl 3 PoA and a LOT of dead Troopers.
Had people tried this strategy, and how effective was it?
Depending on the map’s length, you can be anywhere between 3 to 10+ PoA. And you don’t necessarily need troopers. Although, usually you’re floating a lot of minerals anyway. This really just become a supply exchange issue later.
Sorry forgot to mention, many of the PoAs are level 3. Just depends on how long the mission is. One thing to note is to roll them out one at a time and preferably as early as you can. Of course, that is without hurting your economy. Try to time pushing the base with your calldowns. The very 1st PoA gaining at least 2 levels is very important to fending off things (without further trooper support).
Never did like the mass PoA build myself, their auto attack dps is really bad, and you don’t really need more than a few to Yamato every wave to death. It does work though.
The super niche Pride-only build should be pretty straight forward for the very specific circumstances where you want to do it. Important to remember that they are spellcasting units with low auto attack damage.
On something like Void Launch against an air comp (Terran Dominion Battlegroup for instance) mass Sky Furies can be a really great comp.
I’m all other circumstances I’d almost always practise and use a generalist P2 comp:
Don’t forget to upgrade weapons at Engineering Bay to increase the damage of Dogs of War and even consider putting up to 25 Mastery points in Terrible Damage (as P2 maxes out fast anyway).
Just did a TotP against Swarmy earlier. Ended up with 7 PoA (can get more, didn’t), all level 3. There was some sprinkles flame troopers (less than 5?) mostly to cover for a 0 damage temple early game lol.
It works about as well as any mass BC build does. I’m not a fan of it, personally, as they are so slow to get out. I’d rather have a balanced Royal Guard army.
I confess I half-expected Fear to bring up counter points. XD
Similar to my arrangement, except I use two Blackhammer and no Shock Division unless it’s a defensive map. (Should I fly it with Intercessor?)
Ten Ghost Academy is intriguing, how frequently do you use Nukes to need ten? I figure the delay might cause the Nuke to miss so I only use 2~3 for pushing bases.
Can three Pride each level fast enough to lvl 3?
And this was without other Royal Guards, yes?
Generally you don’t mass prides, 2 - 4 is enough. It’s not impossible to pull off but it’s very expensive and time consuming in the long run. Like with mass dragoons too much of a unit is bad and you’re better off fielding other RGs like the ever reliable aegis guards and shadows.
Similar to mine as well except I get 4 shadows, 2 blackhammers, 2-4 prides (more if against air). For assault missions I generally don’t get shock division unless against an air comp so I have some AoE anti-air. I also don’t get ESO unless I need the toxic gas calldown. I also build around 8-10 academies, my ratio is 2 nukes per shadow as once upgraded you can calldown all 10 with just 1 shadow.
I only mass shock division for DoN or Miner Evac.
Yeah, just mass PoA.
You’ll find you’ll be able to make many things work perfectly fine on Brutal. It is part of the fun to be able to run with these.
The only Royal Guard in mass that doesn’t work for 99% of the situation is mass Emperor’s Shadow. They can sustain ok enough with micro and Intercessors healing. Their problem is the damage output and slow mobility often do them in (though, you can definitely make up some of that with more silos). Although, this has nothing to do with PoA’s 
.
Mengsk’s strongest composition will always be a mix of RGs that compliment each other and counter your enemy composition. Then again, it’ll get boring fast that way cuz that deviation isn’t that much. What’s fun about mass PoA is you can definitely move around quite easily 
.
Mass Prides is valid comp. Make sure to invest all mastery to RD cost reduction and RD mandate regeneration. Third mastery is max starting mandate. Fight early wave with zerg cooldown. Also don’t forget to quick expand for gas. Build two Starports and early on skip producing any blimps and upgrades to max out on gas for first 2-3 Prides. Get them fast to Rank 3 and don’t forget to repair them with scv/topbar bunker.
This comp is perfectly valid for random B+1, and is a breeze in B. Just work your a*s to early produce only Prides, nothing else. They have enough mandate regeneration on their own.
Last obvious tip is to always TP around map with Prides that have Yamato ready. You always intercept big waves with Yamato salvo.
10 Ghost Academy let’s you wipe an attack wave. It’s about alternating special abilities. 1 wave nukes, 1 wave top bar nukes, 1 wave Prides, 1 wave Dogs of War etc.
Empty ESOs also let you break pathing on attack waves anytime as well with Contaminated Strike.
Prides can cover the entire map easy
What they don’t have is sustained dps against large objectives. Rocket Troopers can solve that, I suppose